75.8K
Downloads
600
Episodes
A daily brief about the world's most dangerous places from international war correspondent Chuck Holton
Episodes
Tuesday May 21, 2019
Tuesday May 21, 2019
Immigration - will the tidal wave ever end? We'll look back at some context about the current crisis on this episode of the Hot Zone.
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at OUR sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
MOTHER OF EXILES. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
Hi folks, I'm Chuck Holton. That sonnet is the part you've likely never heard of the poem that adorns Lady Liberty in New York Harbor. Great literature, to be sure. But what do those lofty goals of "world-wide welcome" mean in today's contentious political environment? We'll explore that on this episode of the Hot Zone. So The Crisis at the US southern border is nothing short of catastrophic, not just for American sovereignty, but for the people who are risking everything, leaving their families behind to cross thousands of miles of dangerous territory and grab for a slice of the American dream. Many of them end up being separated from their loved ones for years, only to find out getting into America isn't as easy as they thought it would be.
The US Customs and Border Protection is currently stretched beyond their limits, but the men and women who protect the border every day are still doing some really good work. ON Thursday U.S. Border Patrol agents working near the U.S./Mexico International Border arrested two convicted sex offenders who had entered the United States illegally. Both men had felony convictions for sex crimes with a minor. One was a Mexican and the other was an illegal from El Salvador. Friday, an undercover operation by the Border Patrol netted an estimated 220 pounds of methamphetamine, 110 pounds of cocaine, and thousands of pills. So when you hear the media say all these migrants are just poor immigrants looking for a better way of life, keep in mind some very bad people are taking advantage of the chaos to enter our country so they can sell their drugs or take advantage of your daughter.
And lest you believe the lying politicians who say the Border Patrol isn't compassionate, keep in mind these men and women put themselves at risk every day to safeguard the very people who are crossing our frontier illegally. U.S. Border Patrol agents assigned to the Eagle Pass Station marine unit rescued two undocumented immigrants on Thursday morning after they nearly drowned attempting to cross the Rio Grande River.
This year we're looking at likely more than a million people flooding into America without waiting in line or getting a visa. That's a catastrophe, for sure, but it's not without precedent. In fact, about half of the years since 1980 have seen more than a million illegals enter our country. So the claim that there are only 11 or 12 million people living illegally in the United States is likely way off. In fact, According to a study by two Yale professors and an MIT instructor, there are approximately 22.1 million illegal aliens living in the United States, more than twice previous estimates. The ironic thing is, these professors set out to prove the number was much lower than the 11 million figure commonly being used. They were able to prove some faulty methodology in the study that came up with the generally accepted estimates but were shocked to discover that the true number is likely much, much higher.
Keep in mind how much this costs you and me. According to the Federation for American Immigration Reform:
-
In 2017, the total cost of illegal immigration for the United States – at the federal, state, and local levels – was approximately $116 billion. FAIR arrived at this number by subtracting the tax revenue paid by illegal aliens – about $19 billion – from the total economic impact of illegal migration, $134.9 billion.
-
Based on previous estimates, in under four years, the cost has risen nearly $3 billion.
-
Evidence shows that the tax payments made by illegal aliens fail to cover the costs of the many services they consume. For example., A large percentage of illegal aliens who work in the underground economy frequently avoid paying any income tax at all. But they do file taxes: Many illegal aliens actually receive a net cash profit through refundable tax credit programs.
-
The thing is, they know this. The news travels fast in Latin America that if you can just get to the United States...just get across the border however you can, you can work for cash under the table, qualify for a few social programs, and even get a tax refund when you didn't pay any tax! Then you can send some of that money home to the rest of your kin and pay for their trip to the land of milk and honey.
-
I've talked to Latinos who have never been to the US who can tell me all about how to game the system. And even if they get put in detention, they'll get three hots and a cot, daily hot showers, free calls home...all of which represents more than they are used to at home. I'm not saying this out of hatefulness - I don't think you can blame these people. I mean, it'd be like if Someone told us that all we had to do was take a bus to the border in Canada and that country would pay us a million bucks a year for doing nothing. Who wouldn't get in that line?
People like to excoriate our president for suggesting a moratorium on the importation of people from countries known for terrorism. But there's a lot of precedent for that sort of thing. for example, let's look back at some of our history relating to immigration:
Ellis Island opened in 1892 as a processing center for legal immigrants wanting to come to the United States. By 1907 the center passed a milestone - one million people entered through the center in that year.
But back then migrants were subjected to some pretty harsh requirements before they'd be granted access to the USA. Today we see the Statue of Liberty with her bronze plaque inscribed with some lines from a sonnet composed by Emma Lazarus. It says, "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Liberals like to point to those words as proof that America should accept every single person who comes from anywhere on earth that happens to be poorer than we are. But in those early days at Ellis Island, America had STANDARDS. and if you didn't meet the bar we set, you were on the next ship back home. Simple as that.
There were health standards. You could be denied for having missing limbs, being blind, or even just too weak. Obviously, if you were contagious your were gone immediately, but we didn't get that many of those because the shipping lines received a fine of $100 for every person they delivered to America who didn't qualify.
There were economic requirements - the US wanted to see that you had thirty dollars in your pocket, or if not, someone already in the states who would sponsor you.
And there were even political and ideological requirements. You could not be an anarchist or a polygamist. Anyone with a criminal background was not allowed. And you could even be disqualified if the reviewer just thought you were a little too slow or for any reason might become a ward of the state.
My how times have changed. Today, many, if not most of the hundred thousand or so migrants crossing our southern border every month are coming here specifically to become wards of the state. Let that sink in.
in 1924 the US determined there were too people deemed "undesirable" emigrating to our country. so the Immigration act was passed that severely restricted immigration by people from Poland, Italy, Greece and Eastern Europe, as well as Jews.
So it has been done. Part of the job of the United States Government is to control immigration. Point, Period, end of story. Because without that control we simply aren't a country. Now I'm all for people being able to travel wherever they want to go. And truthfully the US could handle another 100 million people as long as we didn't give them anything but opportunity and they spread out a bit. But unfettered immigration coupled with a broken and overly generous social welfare programs - which don't kid yourself, are intended to take money from a small group of voters in order to buy the loyalty of a much larger group of voters...well that's a recipe for the fall of our civilization.
I've been reporting on this for a long, long time. And I want to remind you of one thing: there are tens of thousands of people languishing in the system who are trying to come here legally... and they are having to wait for sometimes years because they're being run over by the hundreds of thousands who just choose to cross the river illegally.
[package]
So look, A wall will slow the tide, but only removing the monetary incentives will fix the problem for good.
Is that humane? Well, it certainly is for those who are paying the bill.
That's all for today's podcast. Thanks for watching. I'll see you back here again tomorrow!
end notes:
Comments (0)
To leave or reply to comments, please download free Podbean or
No Comments
To leave or reply to comments,
please download free Podbean App.